Rick James
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Rick James
musician; singer; songwriter; producer
Personal Information
Born James Ambrose Johnson Jr., c. 1948, in Buffalo, NY; son of an autoworker, James, Sr., and Mabel (Gladden) Johnson; married Tanya Hijazi, c. 1996; children: Tazman.
Career
Singer, producer, songwriter, and musician. Member of the Sailor Boys with Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, mid-1960s; member of the Mynah Birds, mid-1960s, with Neil Young; hired by Motown Records as a staff songwriter, early 1970s; turned in a finished album, c. 1977, to Motown and was signed as a recording artist; first single "You and I," released in 1978; first LP, Come Get It, released on Motown in 1978; achieved biggest success with 1981 single "Super Freak"; released several albums for Motown until the 1980s; contractual disputes led to a switch to Warner/Reprise, c. 1988; released Urban Rapsody on Private I/Mercury Records, 1997.
Life's Work
The very name Rick James seems to ring synonymous with his biggest hit, the Eighties dance-funk classic "Super Freak." During the height of his career, James was putting out successful albums for Motown as well as producing the work of a roster of other talent, names that included Teena Marie, the Temptations, and Eddie Murphy. Yet James' drug addiction eventually spiraled so far out of control that he simply lost his ability--and desire--to write songs, then ran afoul of the law in a pair of disturbing incidents. With a prison term behind him and a young son to raise, James--though he turned fifty in 1998--still enjoys a respectable career in music and is writing his autobiography.
James was born James Ambrose Johnson Jr. in Buffalo, New York, in 1948. He was one of eight children in a family headed by an abusive father who left when James was just seven. From his mother, once a Katherine Dunham dancer who had worked at some of Harlem's most prestigious nightclubs, James learned at an early age about the possibilities show business offered. But with eight kids in her single-parent household in Buffalo, Mabel Johnson's glamorous days were long over--instead of dancing, she worked as a cleaning woman and ran numbers on the side for a local organized crime racket. Through this she was able to clothe and feed her children, and was also able to send some to private school. James went to a Catholic school for a time--even serving as an altar boy--but its strict rules and his love of sports could not keep him out of trouble by the time he entered his teens. His formative years were marked by an increasing penchant for cutting class, petty crime, and a burgeoning relationship with juvenile authorities.
Though James seemed on the road to a dead-end future, it was a talent show he entered in high school that finally provided him with the focus his life needed. When he took the stage, "I started off with a bongo beat," James wrote in the manuscript for his autobiography, Memoirs of a Super Freak, reprinted in a 1996 Rolling Stone interview with Mike Sager. "Then I began to sing out this chant. I asked the crowd to sing along, and they did. The feeling of the crowd singing, the people dancing in the aisles cast a magic spell on me. ... I made a pact with myself from that day on--music was my life."
When James was not yet sixteen, he dropped out of school permanently; to skirt the draft, he signed up with the Naval Reserves. The part-time military duty required James to report for training two weekends out of every month, but before long he was unable to meet this stipulation because of increasing success with his first band, the Duprees. They were a harmonizing group that covered Motown songs, and James had also started drumming with another band, a jazz act. When his military superiors reached the point of exasperation, James was told to report for active duty in 1964. Instead he fled to Canada.
James found himself wearing a Navy uniform walking down the streets of Toronto, a city growing increasingly countercultural in nature by dint of the American draft-dodgers arriving daily. That free spirit translated into a hostility toward American military uniforms, and James was immediately harassed; a fight broke out. Three sympathetic men came to his rescue, among them up-and-coming musicians Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, who would go on to form the lauded Sixties rock ensemble known as The Band. They took James to a coffeehouse, and by the end of the night they were performing together on its stage. A band was formed, which they called the Sailor Boys, and James went underground using an alias, Ricky James Matthews.
The Sailor Boys were the predecessor to James' next band, the Mynah Birds, formed with Nick St. Nicholas, who would later go on to become part of the successful California rock band Steppenwolf. Canadian guitarist Neil Young was also a Mynah Bird for a time, and the group became well-known on the Canadian rock scene. The fledgling band was financed by an ambitious British rock impresario, and eventually they secured a contract with Motown Records. After recording an album, the Mynahs were dropped when the label found out James was a wanted man in the United States because of his AWOL status. Realizing his judgment day had arrived, James gave himself up to authorities, but then escaped from a naval brig after reading in a magazine how successful all his former bandmates were becoming. He eventually served out his sentence and returned to Toronto, where Canadian authorities then arrested him on stolen- property charges. He served more jail time there before being deported.
Despite his problems with the law, Motown recognized James' talent and hired him as a songwriter in the early 1970s. He grew unhappy with the "hit factory" nature of the process, however, and quit. For some time after that, James indulged his growing taste for illicit substances by working as a drug courier. Eventually he was able to record an album on his own, and took it to Motown, who re- signed him as a recording artist immediately. That LP, Come Get It, and its first single, "You and I," established James as a solid singer/songwriter able to mine the basics of funk into a catchy pop tune. At the height of the disco era, "You and I" was the No. 1 R&B single, and the album achieved double-platinum status.
Motown again put its faith in James' talents and gave their new star carte blanche. He put together a massive back-up ensemble, the Stone City Band, and became famous for his live shows. His band members were all over six feet tall, like James, and wore their hair in braids like him as well. At the time, James was considered a bit outrageous in appearance with his spandex stage gear, a bare chest, and long braids--a style which he admitted to borrowing from two dissimilar elements: Masai dancers and the rock act Kiss. James followed up the success of Come Get It with Bustin' Out of L7 in 1979 and Fire It Up a year later; the sound he created during this era helped establish him as the historical link between George Clinton's funkadelic sound and the "Controversy" years of Prince.
As the money poured in, James lived well. He moved into a Hollywood mansion and built a recording studio there, and also bought a large property closer to his roots outside Buffalo in 1980. His band, and his back-up singers, the Mary Jane Girls, all moved with him, along with other members of an increasingly larger entourage. The ranch served as a playground, with numerous luxury cars, horses, snowmobiles, a pool, and an arcade room. A large amount of cocaine, the drug of the era, was also involved; for fun, James would speed through New York State to New York City--sometimes driven by a cop he kept on his payroll--and used Manhattan's priciest hotels as his base for jaunts to exclusive discos such as Studio 54 and Xenon.
Part of the largesse for such a lifestyle came from James' success as a recording artist and producer for Motown. He helped craft hits for numerous other Motown acts, but it was his 1981 hit "Super Freak" that earned him millions. The song sold 4 million copies and crossed over to the white pop audience as well. The album, Street Songs, sold 3 million copies, and another single, "Give It to Me Baby," was also wildly successful. James was tagged the King of Funk Punk, and enjoyed the appreciative social company of stars like Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
Yet it was a 1981 encounter with rock legend Sly Stone that changed James' life irrevocably. He and a bandmate witnessed the former Seventies star freebasing, or smoking cocaine--a practice which had severely injured comedian Richard Pryor just a year before. Sly Stone appeared so unaware of his surroundings that James and his horn player were shocked at how far he had fallen, and vowed never to try freebasing, which was known to be extremely addictive. A few days later, James visited Stone again in San Francisco and the pair spent a week locked in a recording studio, freebasing.
Soon James was spending $10,000 a week on drugs--but continued to have a moderately successful career as a recording artist and producer. He even became involved with other African American musicians to pressure the fledgling MTV to integrate its playlist. Street Songs was followed by Throwin' Down in 1982 and a successful solo effort he produced for the Mary Jane Girls a year later. He had a hit on his own in 1983 with the song "Cold Blooded," a song he wrote about actress Linda Blair, whom he had dated, and a year later with the raunchy "17." In 1985 he produced the record launching comedian Eddie Murphy's singing career, with the ill- advised "Party All the Time"; though it reached No. 2 on the charts, Murphy would eventually direct his ambitions to acting in feature films. For his extensive production work for these and other artists, James received Grammy nominations, despite the increasing turmoil in his personal life.
Over time, however, the drugs began to undermine James' creativity. He became withdrawn, had aluminum foil mounted on his home windows to keep out the daylight, would stay awake for ten days at a time, and simply stopped writing music when the passion finally disappeared. His 1986 LP for Motown, The Flag, sold less than 100,000 copies, though a single, "Sweet and Sexy Thing," did well. James sued the label to be released from his contract, and the label countersued, saying The Flag was a dismal effort since James was using such massive quantities of drugs at the time of its recording. The federal judge in the case said that given James' past history of drug abuse--along with what he called "the reportedly widespread drug use in the music industry," according to Rolling Stone--such charges of drug use were irrelevant to Motown's suit against James.
James emerged from the legal troubles of the late 1980s relatively well and signed with Warner/Reprise. His creative career, however, appeared on the skids. A review in People of his 1988 effort for the label, Wonderful, was less than kind; critic David Hildebrand declared "the grooves are stale and the instrumentation clamorous." The death of Mabel Johnson sent James into a tailspin of self- destructive behavior, and his drug use grew increasingly ruinous. In 1991, he and his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi were accused of assaulting a woman in their Hollywood home--a woman they befriended, then accused of stealing drugs--and faced a trial; a year later, another woman also filed assault and torture charges.
Los Angeles prosecutors combined the two cases, and James faced three life sentences for a total of fifteen felony counts. Yet the Los Angeles Times uncovered prosecutorial misconduct--someone in their office had been supplying drugs to one of the witnesses against James and Hijazi--and a deal was cut in which James received a prison sentence of five years and four months. The judge at the sentencing called James "the luckiest man on earth," and said, "{If I'd} had my way, I'd have thrown away the key," according to Sager in Rolling Stone.
James served out his sentence in California's Folsom Prison, where he converted to Islam, joined Narcotics Anonymous, began writing his autobiography, and finally returned to songwriting again. He estimated that he had squandered over $400,000 a year on drugs over a decade, and considered his incarceration "a blessing in disguise," according to People magazine in 1996. "Otherwise I probably would have been dead by now." He was released in the summer of 1996. Though James had declared personal bankruptcy, there was still some money left in his music business to do another album, which was released in 1997 on Private I/Mercury. Jancee Dunn, reviewing Urban Rapsody for Rolling Stone, called it "a mellow, reflective, and intensely autobiographical affair"; she noted that his years of troubles seemed to have dulled the risque edge that had infused his earlier successes--but concluded, "we're glad you're still with us, Rick."
Works
Selective Discography
- Bustin' Out of L7, Motown, 1979.
- Fire It Up, Motown, 1980.
- Street Songs, Motown, 1981.
- Throwin' Down, Motown, 1982.
- Cold Blooded, Motown, 1983.
- The Flag, Motown, 1986.
- Wonderful, Reprise, 1988.
- Bustin' Out: The Best of Rick James, Motown, 1994.
- Urban Rapsody, Private I/Mercury Records, 1997.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Jet, August 26, 1991, p. 56; January 24, 1994, p. 51; August 8, 1994, p. 61.
- People, August 8, 1988; June 17, 1996, p. 123.
- Rolling Stone, May 18, 1989, p. 30; June 27, 1996; November 26, 1997.
- Additional information for this profile was provided by the
- Internet site at http://www.igc.apc.org and http://www.music.com
— Carol Brennan
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| For The Record... |
| Born James Ambrose Johnson Jr., on February 1, 1948, in Buffalo, NY; died on August 6, 2004, in Los Angeles, CA; son of James Sr. (an autoworker) and Mabel (Gladden) Johnson; married Tanya Hijazi, c. 1996; children: Tazman. Singer, producer, songwriter, and musician; member of the Sailor Boys with Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, mid-1960s; member of the Mynah Birds, mid-1960s, with Neil Young; hired by Motown Records as a staff songwriter, early 1970s; turned in a finished album, c. 1977, to Motown and was signed as a recording artist; first single "You and I," released in 1978; first LP, Come Get It, released on Motown in 1978; achieved biggest success with 1981 single "Super Freak"; released several albums for Motown until the 1980s; contractual disputes led to a switch to Warner/Reprise, c. 1988; released Urban Rapsody on Private I/Mercury Records, 1997; toured, 1997-98. |
Singer, songwriter, music producer
The very name Rick James seems to ring synonymous with his biggest hit, the 1980s' dance-funk classic "Super Freak." During the height of his career, James was putting out successful albums for Motown as well as producing work by a roster of other talent, names that included Teena Marie, the Temptations, and Eddie Murphy. Yet James's drug addiction eventually spiraled so far out of control that he simply lost his ability—and desire—to write songs, then ran afoul of the law in a pair of disturbing incidents. With a prison term behind him and a young son to raise, James had begun an attempt to clean up his life, but died of a heart attack in 2004.
James was born James Ambrose Johnson Jr., in Buffalo, New York, in 1948. He was one of eight children in a family headed by an abusive father who left when James was just seven. From his mother, once a Katherine Dunham dancer who had worked at some of Harlem's most prestigious nightclubs, James learned at an early age about the possibilities show business offered. But with eight kids in her single-parent household in Buffalo, Mabel Johnson's glamorous days were long over—instead of dancing, she worked as a cleaning woman and ran numbers on the side for a local organized crime racket. Through this she was able to clothe and feed her children, and was also able to send some of them to private school. James went to a Catholic school for a time—even serving as an altar boy—but its strict rules and his love of sports could not keep him out of trouble. His formative years were marked by an increasing penchant for cutting class, petty crime, and a burgeoning relationship with juvenile authorities.
Though James seemed on the road to a dead-end future, it was a talent show he entered in high school that finally provided him with the focus his life needed. When he took the stage, "I started off with a bongo beat," James wrote in the manuscript for his autobiography, Memoirs of a Super Freak, reprinted in a 1996 Rolling Stone interview with Mike Sager. "Then I began to sing out this chant. I asked the crowd to sing along, and they did. The feeling of the crowd singing, the people dancing in the aisles cast a magic spell on me…. I made a pact with myself from that day on—music was my life."
When James was not yet 16, he dropped out of school permanently; to skirt the draft, he signed up with the Naval Reserves. The part-time military duty required James to report for training two weekends out of every month, but before long he was unable to meet this stipulation because of increasing success with his first band, the Duprees. They were a harmonizing group that covered Motown songs, and James had also started drumming with another band, a jazz act. When his military superiors reached the point of exasperation, James was told to report for active duty in 1964. Instead, he fled to Canada.
James found himself wearing a Navy uniform walking down the streets of Toronto. He was immediately harassed, and a fight broke out. Three sympathetic men came to his rescue, among them up-and-coming musicians Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, who would later go on to form the lauded 1960s' rock ensemble known as The Band. They took James to a coffeehouse, and by the end of the night they were performing together on its stage. They formed a band called the Sailor Boys, and James went underground using an alias, Ricky James Matthews.
The Sailor Boys were the predecessor to James's next band, the Mynah Birds, formed with Nick St. Nicholas, who would later go on to become part of the successful California rock band Steppenwolf. Canadian guitarist Neil Young was also a Mynah Bird for a time, and the group became well-known on the Canadian rock scene. The fledgling band was financed by an ambitious British rock impresario, and eventually they secured a contract with Motown Records. After recording an album, the Mynahs were dropped when the label found out James was a wanted man in the United States because of his AWOL status.
Landed in Jail
Realizing his judgment day had arrived, James gave himself up to authorities, but then escaped from a naval brig. He eventually served out his sentence and returned to Toronto, where Canadian authorities then arrested him on stolen-property charges. He served more jail time there before being deported.
Despite his problems with the law, Motown recognized James's talent and hired him as a songwriter in the early 1970s. He grew unhappy with the "hit factory" nature of the process, however, and quit. For some time after that, he indulged his growing taste for illicit substances by working as a drug courier. Eventually he was able to record an album on his own, and took it to Motown, who re-signed him as a recording artist. That LP, Come Get It, and its first single, "You and I," established James as a solid singer/songwriter able to turn the basics of funk into a catchy pop tune. At the height of the disco era, "You and I" was the number one R&B single, and the album achieved double-platinum status.
Under Motown's aegis, James put together a massive backup ensemble, the Stone City Band, and became famous for his live shows. The band members were all over six feet tall, like James, and wore their hair in braids as he did. At the time, James was considered a bit outrageous in appearance with his spandex stage gear, a bare chest, and long braids—a style which he admitted borrowing from two dissimilar elements: Masai dancers and the rock act Kiss. James followed up the success of Come Get It with Bustin' Out of L7 in 1979 and Fire It Up a year later; the sound he created during this era helped establish him as the historical link between George Clinton's funkadelic sound and the "Controversy" years of Prince.
As the money poured in, James lived well. He moved into a Hollywood mansion and built a recording studio there, and also bought a large property closer to Buffalo in 1980. Part of the largesse for such a lifestyle came from James's success as a recording artist and producer for Motown. He helped craft hits for numerous other Motown acts, but it was his 1981 hit "Super Freak" that earned him millions. The song sold four million copies and crossed over to the white pop audience. The album Street Songs sold three million copies, and another single, "Give It to Me Baby," was also wildly successful. James was tagged the King of Funk Punk, and enjoyed the appreciative social company of stars like Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
Spiraled Out of Control
Yet a 1981 encounter with rock legend Sly Stone changed James's life irrevocably. He and a bandmate witnessed the former 1970s star freebasing, or smoking cocaine, a practice that had severely injured comedian Richard Pryor just a year before. Sly Stone appeared so unaware of his surroundings that James and his horn player were shocked at how far he had fallen, and vowed never to try freebasing, which was known to be extremely addictive. A few days later, however, James visited Stone again in San Francisco, and the pair spent a week freebasing, while locked in a recording studio.
Soon James was spending $10,000 a week on drugs, even though he continued to have a moderately successful career as a recording artist and producer. Street Songs was followed by Throwin' Down in 1982. He had a hit in 1983 with "Cold Blooded," a song he wrote about actress Linda Blair, whom he had dated, and a year later scored with the raunchy "17." In 1985 he launched the record career of comedian Eddie Murphy, producing the ill-advised "Party All the Time"; though it reached number two on the charts, Murphy would soon direct his ambitions to acting in feature films. James received Grammy nominations for his extensive production work for these and other artists.
Over time, however, James's drug abuse began to undermine his creativity. He became withdrawn, and finally stopped writing music. His 1986 LP for Motown, The Flag, sold fewer than 100,000 copies. James sued the label to be released from his contract, and the label countersued, saying The Flag was a dismal effort, due to the extent of James's drug abuse. A federal judge in the case finally ruled that the charges of drug use were irrelevant in the company's case against James.
James emerged from the legal troubles of the late 1980s relatively unscathed, and signed with Warner/Reprise. His creative career, however, seemed on the skids. A review in People of his 1988 effort for the label, Wonderful, was less than kind; critic David Hildebrand declared, "The grooves are stale and the instrumentation clamorous." The death of Mabel Johnson sent James into a tailspin of self-destructive behavior, and his drug use grew increasingly ruinous. In 1991 he and a girlfriend were accused of assaulting a woman in their Hollywood home, and faced a trial; a year later, another woman also filed assault and torture charges.
Los Angeles prosecutors combined the two cases, and James faced three life sentences for a total of 15 felony counts. Yet the Los Angeles Times uncovered prosecutorial misconduct—someone in their office had been supplying drugs to one of the witnesses against James and his girlfriend—and a deal was cut in which James received a prison sentence of five years and four months. The judge at the sentencing called James "the luckiest man on earth," and said, "[If I'd] had my way, I'd have thrown away the key," according to Sager in Rolling Stone.
Attempted a Comeback
James served out his sentence in California's Folsom Prison, where he converted to Islam, joined Narcotics Anonymous, began writing his autobiography, and finally returned to songwriting. He estimated that he had squandered over $400,000 a year on drugs over a decade, and considered his incarceration "a blessing in disguise," according to People. He was released in the summer of 1996. Though James had declared personal bankruptcy, there was still some money left from his music business to do another album, which was released in 1997 on Private I/Mercury. Jancee Dunn, reviewing Urban Rapsody for Rolling Stone, called it "a mellow, reflective, and intensely autobiographical affair."
Although Urban Rapsody was both a commercial and critical success, James disappeared from the music scene once again shortly after the album's release. The tour following the album was only sporadically successful, with slow ticket sales responsible for the cancellation of a show in Buffalo. Making a comeback after a two-year prison sentence was also difficult for James personally. He told Anthony Violanti in the Buffalo News, "I feared going into the studio and I feared going on stage again. I had a lot of anxiety, but getting back has been great. The crowds have been amazing." The tour, however, was brought to a halt on November 6 during a show in the Mammoth Event Center in Denver. While performing, James felt something pop in his neck, then reported feeling pain and numbness. After being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the doctors diagnosed the singer as having suffered a stroke.
James faced more legal difficulties in 2002 when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 26-year-old woman, a charge he denied. James died on August 6, 2004, at his Los Angeles home, and although the coroner's report found the presence of nine different drugs, the cause of death was officially listed as a heart attack. Despite his legal and drug problems over the years, James told Aidin Vaziri in the San Francisco Chronicle that he had few regrets about the highlights of his career. "No, there's not a whole lot of things I would change…. I was at such a high point, what would I change?."
Selected discography
Bustin' Out of L7, Motown, 1979.
Fire It Up, Motown, 1980.
Street Songs, Motown, 1981.
Throwin' Down, Motown, 1982.
Cold Blooded, Motown, 1983.
The Flag, Motown, 1986.
Wonderful, Reprise, 1988.
Bustin' Out: The Best of Rick James, Motown, 1994.
Urban Rapsody, Private I/Mercury Records, 1997.
Sources
Buffalo News, November 22, 1998, p. E1.
Jet, August 26, 1991, p. 56; January 24, 1994, p. 51; August 8, 1994, p. 61.
People, August 8, 1988; June 17, 1996, p. 123.
Rolling Stone, May 18, 1989, p. 30; June 27, 1996; November 26, 1997.
San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2002, p. 51.
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Rick James
- Genres: Rhythm & Blues
Biography
In the late '70s, when the fortunes of Motown Records seemed to be flagging, Rick James came along and rescued the company, providing funky hits that updated the label's style and saw it through into the mid-'80s. Actually, James had been with Motown earlier, though nothing had come of it. After growing up in Buffalo and running away to join the Naval Reserves, he ran away from the Navy to Toronto, where he was in a band with future Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, and with Goldy McJohn, later of Steppenwolf. As the Mynah Birds, they signed to Motown and recorded, though no record was ever released.James had a journeyman's career playing bass in various groups before signing again to Motown as an artist, songwriter, and producer. His first single, "You and I" (May 1978), topped the R&B charts and reached the pop Top 40. "Mary Jane" (September 1978) was another hit. Both were on James' debut album, Come Get It! (June 1978), which went gold. Subsequent efforts were not as successful, though Bustin' Out of L Seven (January 1979) featured the R&B hit "Bustin' Out" (April 1979). James returned to form with the number one R&B hit "Give It to Me Baby" (March 1981), featured on the million-selling Street Songs (April 1981), which also featured the hit "Super Freak."
James turned his production attention to resuscitating the career of the Temptations, recently returned to Motown, and "Standing on the Top" (April 1982), credited to the Temptations featuring Rick James, was an R&B Top Ten. (He also produced recordings by Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls.) James' follow-up to Street Songs was the gold-selling Throwin' Down (May 1982), which featured the hit "Dance Wit' Me." The title song of Cold Blooded (August 1983) became James' third R&B number one, and the album also featured his hit duet with Smokey Robinson, "Ebony Eyes." James' greatest-hits album Reflections (August 1984) featured the new track "17" (June 1984), which also became a hit. Glow (April 1985) contained Top Ten R&B singles in the title track and "Can't Stop," which was featured in the summer movie blockbuster Beverly Hills Cop. The Flag (June 1986) featured the hit "Sweet and Sexy Thing" (May 1986).
James left Motown for the Reprise division of Warner Bros. Records as of the album Wonderful (July 1988), which featured his number one R&B hit "Loosey's Rap," on which he was accompanied by rapper Roxanne Shante. Nevertheless, his "punk funk" didn't seem to rest comfortably with the trend toward rap/hip-hop. In 1989, James charted briefly with a medley of the Drifters hits "This Magic Moment" and "Dance With Me." In 1990, MC Hammer scored a massive hit with "U Can't Touch This," which consisted of his rap over the instrumental track of "Super Freak." That should have made for a career rebirth, but James was plagued by drug and legal problems that found him more frequently in court and in jail rather than in the recording studio. The majority of his legal woes behind him, James returned in 1997 with Urban Rapsody, which didn't yield any hits but was well accepted by critics. Rick James died of a heart attack on August 6, 2004, at his Los Angeles home. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
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| Rick James | |
|---|---|
 Rick James, 1996 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. |
| Also known as | Big Jimmy; Ricky James Matthews (early career); Jimmy "The Whale" |
| Born | February 1, 1948 Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Died | August 6, 2004 (aged 56) Burbank, California, U.S. |
| Genres | R&B, soul, funk, pop, soft rock |
| Occupations | Singer, songwriter, dancer, bandleader, record producer |
| Instruments | Vocal, bass, guitar, keyboards, drums and other percussion instruments |
| Years active | 1964–2004 |
| Labels | Gordy Records Motown Records Reprise Records Mercury Records |
| Associated acts | The Mynah Birds Stone City Band Heaven and Earth Mary Jane Girls Process and the Doo Rags Val Young Eddie Murphy Teena Marie |
| Website | www.rickjames.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Rickenbacker 4001 Gibson Les Paul |
|
James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. (February 1, 1948 – August 6, 2004), better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B. Among his well known songs are "Super Freak", "Mary Jane" and "You and I".
In addition to his music, James gained notoriety for his wild lifestyle, which led to widely publicized legal problems, and which was famously satirized by Chappelle's Show in 2004.
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Contents
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Early life
Rick James was born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. in Buffalo, New York. He attended Orchard Park High School and Bennett High School before dropping out at the age of 15. One of eight children, his father, an autoworker, abandoned him and his siblings when Rick was a child. His mother, a former vaudeville dancer, later reportedly ran errands for a Mafia family to make ends meet.[citation needed]
James grew up singing on street corners with fellow neighborhood boys. James' early idols included Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Temptations (particularly his uncle, Melvin Franklin). After briefly being involved in street crime, James dropped out of high school at 15 to avoid a possible draft and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. A year later, James left the Reserve after he began to miss weekend training, because it interfered with his music career.[1][not in citation given]
Career
Early career
After failing to report for active duty on the USS Enterprise and in fear of arrest, James fled north to Toronto in the summer of 1964. Now using the stage name Big Jimmy, he formed his first band with future Steppenwolf member Nick St. Nicholas, initially called the Sailor Boyz. The band soon changed their name to the Mynah Birds, bassist Bruce Palmer took over for St. Nicholas in early 1965, and the group soon released their first single, "Mynah Bird Hop"/"Mynah Bird Song" for Columbia Records of Canada.
James and Palmer soon formed a new Mynah Birds lineup with guitarists Tom Morgan and Xavier Taylor, and drummer Rick Mason. In early 1966, the Mynah Birds auditioned for the Motown label in Detroit. Morgan was unhappy with the label's attitude towards the musicians and left, with Neil Young taking his place. With Young on board, the Mynah Birds returned to Motown to record an album, but their manager pocketed the advance money the label had given the band. The band fired their manager, who in turn told the label that James was actually a seaman who had gone AWOL. Motown told him to give himself up to the FBI, and the Mynah Birds' album was shelved.
James spent a year in a naval prison, after which he briefly returned to Toronto. During the summer of 1967, he formed a new version of The Mynah Birds (sometimes spelled "Myna Byrds") with Neil Merryweather. The band returned to Detroit and recorded a new version of James and Neil Young's "It's My Time", but the band broke up soon afterwards. During early 1968, James returned to Motown and became a songwriter and producer, writing under an assumed name and working with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Canadian band Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers and The Spinners.
In late 1968, James and Greg Reeves moved to Los Angeles, California and formed a rock band called Salt and Pepper (under the name Rick Matthews) with drummer Steve Rumph from T.I.M.E and Michael Rummans from the Yellow Payges. A later version consisted of Coffi Hall from Mama Lion and Merryweather and guitarist Dave Burt and Keyboardist Ed Roth from Merryweather.[2]
Former Buffalo Springfield roadie Chris Sarns played bass for a while, before Ron Johnson from Kaleidoscope stepped in the following year. The group recorded a demo for Atlantic Records, and played at The Fillmore West with Jethro Tull. In 1971, James and Roth both appeared on Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer's solo album, The Cycle is Complete. Then they returned to Toronto, where they recorded two singles - "Big Showdown" and "Don't You Worry" - as part of Heaven and Earth, a band that also featured guitarist Stan Endersby, bass player Denny Gerrard, and drummer Pat Little. Heaven and Earth, minus Little, then merged with another local group, Milestone, to form Great White Cane with horn players Bob Doughty and Ian Kojima, drummer Norman Wellbanks, guitarist Paul C. Saenz, and keyboard player John Cleveland Hughes. The group recorded an album for Lion Records in Los Angeles in March 1972, but by that summer, they had disbanded.
In 1973, A&M Records released the first Rick James single, "My Mama", which is likely to have been recorded in Los Angeles. In 1976, James and South African guitarist Aidan Mason co-wrote "Get Up and Dance!", which was released as a single but failed to chart. In 1977, he returned to Motown as a songwriter/producer. He soon began recording for Motown's Gordy label, first with the Hot Lips and then with a new version of the Stone City Band.
Solo career
In 1978, James released his debut solo album, Come Get It!, in which he played most of the instruments on the album (as he would for his next two albums afterwards before including members of his Stone City Band to back him in the studio). The album launched his solo career, thanks to the funky disco hit, "You and I", and the much smoother, soulful "Mary Jane". He followed this success with Fire It Up, and headlined his first tour in support of the album, which saw then rising funk-pop artist Prince opening for him. James' cordial relationship with Prince during the tour strained after Prince, according to James, stole all bits from his act to hype the audience. He got so fed up with this that he canceled the rest of the tour. In early 1979, he released his third album, Bustin' Out of L Seven, which like his previous two albums, focused on producing a concept project. "L Seven" was named after a street on which James grew up in Buffalo.
After a relative flop with his fourth album, Garden of Love, in 1980, in which he traded most of his disco/funk origins for a more pop-R&B flavored project, he returned to the top with the grittier Street Songs, which was also the first to include rock and new wave elements, particularly in the album's leading single, "Super Freak", which became James' biggest pop hit, reaching number-sixteen on the Billboard Hot 100 and later winning him a Grammy Award nomination. Due to this single, the follow-up top 40 smash, "Give It to Me Baby", the Teena Marie duet "Fire and Desire", and "Ghetto Life", Street Songs peaked at number-one on the R&B album chart and number-three on the pop chart, going on to sell more than three million copies; this became James' biggest-selling album and made James famous. In 1982, just as the hype from Street Songs dropped, he released the gold-selling Throwin' Down album, and followed that up with another hit album, Cold Blooded (1983), which included the hit title track. James continued to score hits with Motown into 1985 but by the end of that year he had begun to have struggles with the label.
Following the release of The Flag in 1986, James left Motown and signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros, releasing the album, Wonderful, in 1988, which yielded the R&B hit, "Loosey's Rap". The video for the song was banned on MTV and BET for sexual content, which James labeled hypocritical. After the release of the UK-only 1989 album, Kickin', James' recording career slowed as he struggled with personal and legal problems. In 1997, a year following his release from prison for assault charges, James released his first new album in eight years, Urban Rapsody. Though James returned to live performances to promote the album, he stopped performing for a while after suffering a stroke following a show in Denver in 1998. Prior to the concert, James was interviewed on VH-1's Behind the Music, where he openly talked about his life and career and also mentioned his drug use, which he said was behind him.
During James' Motown heyday in the late seventies and early eighties, James found himself in demand and was asked to produce Teena Marie's long-awaited debut album. James originally had planned to produce a full album for Diana Ross but when Motown told him they only wanted four songs from James, he gave the songs up to Marie, including the duet, "I'm a Sucker for Your Love", for her debut album, Wild and Peaceful. The album launched not only Marie's career but a personal and professional relationship between James and Marie, which continued until James' death. In 1982, he was asked to produce a song for The Temptations' upcoming album, Reunion, after former members Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin returned to the group for their ill-fated reunion. The song, "Standing on the Top", became a top ten R&B hit and James was credited in the song not only as a writer but as a duet singer, as well.
In 1983, he collaborated with longtime idol Smokey Robinson on their hit song, "Ebony Eyes", which became a top 30 hit on the R&B charts. That same year, he produced his longtime background vocal group The Mary Jane Girls, with their self-titled debut album, featuring the hits "All Night Long" and "Candy Man". The "Mary Jane Girls" originally consisted of Joanne "JoJo" McDuffie (lead/background vocals) and longtime session singers Julia Waters and Maxine Waters. The trio had long sung with James, who later included Kimberly "Maxi" Wuletich, Candice "Candi" Ghant and Cheryl Bailey (who used the stage name Cheri Wells) to join the group, though they didn't sing on the original records. After Wells left, she was replaced by Yvette "Corvette" Marine. In 1985, the group's second album, Only Four You included their biggest hit, "In My House: "JoJo" continued to sing lead and contributed to the backgrounds with the Water Sisters, as the other group members could not sing at all or were extremely limited vocally. Rick's band sang for the group with JoJo for concert tours. James also produced a couple of albums for his Stone City Band, releasing material by the group in 1980 and 1982 respectively. Also in 1985, James produced and wrote the Eddie Murphy hit "Party All the Time"; he also sang on the track. Following James' descent into drug abuse and his exit from Motown, the Stone City Band and the Mary Jane Girls both dissolved in 1987. Both groups reunited following James' release from prison in 1996.
Personal life
James had three children, sons Rick Jr. and Tazman, and daughter Ty. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by his children and two grandchildren. James was extremely close with Teena Marie, whom he met in 1979 and began working with that same year. While James had denied that the two were romantically involved, Marie would say not only were they romantically involved but they were engaged "for two weeks". Their professional partnership lasted into 2004 when Marie released her comeback album, La Dona, which included the James duet, "I Got You". When James died, Marie said she struggled to come to terms with the loss. James' longtime girlfriend, Alfie Davidson, was said to have been a hidden fixture in James' life and was dating him for nearly a decade, even as James carried on relationships with other women, including Marie.
James began a close friendship with Eddie Murphy after the two met in 1981. Following his exit from the United States Navy in 1984, Murphy's older brother Charlie Murphy, whose first post-Navy job was working as security for his famous brother, began hanging out with James, bonding with the singer. Murphy would later recall the two's sometimes-strained relationship on Chappelle's Show, which helped to revive James' name in the public eye after years of seclusion following his mild-stroke in 1998. James also appeared in the episode recounting his memory of the experiences shared by Charlie.
James was friends with fellow Motown acts Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, though his friendship with the latter artist was tested after James began dating Gaye's former wife, Janis Gaye. James became godfather of Gaye's daughter Nona. In his biography, James called Gaye "a crazy motherfucker" but said he loved him to death. Gaye was one of the singers James idolized as a teenager. James' relationship with Robinson began shortly after James signed with Motown and in 1983, the duo recorded the hit "Ebony Eyes". James also idolized former Temptations lead singer David Ruffin and his uncle, bass vocalist Melvin Franklin and grabbed at the chance to produce the hit "Standing on the Top" for them in 1982. Prior to that, the then-current lineup of the group recorded background vocals on two James-associated projects - James' Street Songs and Teena Marie's It Must Be Magic, singing on "Ghetto Life" and "Super Freak" on the former, and the title track on the latter. In "Super Freak", "It Must Be Magic" and "Standing on the Top", James famously shouted out Temptations sing!
In 1989, James met 17-year-old party goer Tanya Hijazi. The two began a romance in 1990. In 1993, the couple welcomed the arrival of their only child and James' youngest, Tazman. Following their releases from prison for their involvement in assaulting Mary Sauger and Frances Alley, the couple married in 1997. The couple's marriage dissolved in 2002.
James' lifelong drug abuse began in his teens. A longtime marijuana user, he began using cocaine in the late 1960s. Cocaine use became an addiction for James by the late 1980s and he began freebasing by the end of the decade. James recalled smoking crack cocaine in his Beverly Hills mansion and often had aluminium foil on the windows to escape onlookers. James claimed he quit cocaine when he entered prison. Though cocaine would later be found in James' bloodstream following his autopsy, it was reported that the drug wasn't at a life-threatening level at the time of his death. After his 1998 stroke, James needed a pacemaker to help him breathe and by his death was dealing with overweight problems, which also affected his health.
Legal problems
The start of the 1990s brought with it a string of bizarre and sometimes horrific incidents for Rick James. His drug use was by this time public knowledge, as he was mainly addicted to cocaine; he later admitted to spending about US $7,000 a week on drugs for five years straight. In 1993, he and future wife Tanya Hijazi were accused of holding 17-year old Katie Lauren Rowley of Gloucester hostage for up to six days (accounts vary on how long she was actually held), tying her up, forcing her to perform sexual acts, and burning her legs and abdomen with the hot end of a crack cocaine pipe during a week long cocaine binge. In 1993, while out on bail for that earlier incident, Rick James, under the influence of cocaine, assaulted music executive Mary Sauger at the St. James Club and Hotel in West Hollywood. Sauger claims she met James and Hijazi for a business meeting, but said the two then kidnapped and beat her over a 20-hour period.
He was found guilty of both offenses, but was cleared of a torture charge in the crack-pipe incident that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. He served two years in Folsom Prison, and lost US $2 million in a civil suit to one of the women. He was released in 1996.[citation needed]
Final years
In 2003, James was a part of a skit on Chappelle's Show called "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories". He, along with Charlie Murphy (brother of Eddie Murphy) recounted humorous stories of their experiences together during the early 1980s. During the skit, Rick James' character, played by Dave Chappelle, utters the now famous catchphrase, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" The skits were punctuated by James, as himself, explaining his past behavior with the phrase, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug!"
At the time of his death, he was working on an autobiography, The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super freak, as well as a new album. The book was finally published toward the end of 2007 by Colossus Books. It features a picture of his tombstone. He was also supporting Teena Marie's tour of her album La Doña, and toured with her in May 2004, playing with her at the KBLX Stone Soul Picnic, Pioneer Amphitheatre, Hayward, California.[3]
Death
On the morning of August 6, 2004, Rick James was found dead in his Los Angeles, California, home at the Oakwood apartment complex on Barham Boulevard by his caretaker. James had died from pulmonary failure and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, a pacemaker, and a heart attack. Through his autopsy, alprazolam, diazepam, bupropion, citalopram, hydrocodone, digoxin, chlorpheniramine, methamphetamine and cocaine were found in his blood.[4] However the coroner also stated, "None of the drugs or drug combinations were found to be at levels that were life-threatening in and of themselves."[5] He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.
Discography
Main article: Rick James discography
Studio albums
- Come Get It!
- Bustin' Out of L Seven
- Fire It Up
- Garden of Love
- Street Songs
- Throwin' Down
- Cold Blooded
- Glow
- The Flag
- Wonderful
- Kickin'
- Urban Rapsody
- Deeper Still
References
- ^ "'Super Freak' singer Rick James dies". CNN. August 7, 2004. http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/06/rick.james/index.html. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
- ^ "Rick James Multimedia Information". http://www.sandiegoaccountantsguide.com/library/Rick-James.php. Retrieved July 17, 20878.
- ^ "Rick James Performs At The 7Th Annual Stone Soul Picnic… Nieuwsfoto's | Getty Images Nederland | 51149124". Gettyimages.com. 2004-05-31. http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rick-james-performs-at-the-7th-annual-stone-soul-picnic-on-news-photo/51149124. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
- ^ Sisario, Ben (September 18, 2004). "ARTS BRIEFING: HIGHLIGHTS; Rick James Autopsy Results". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E4D61739F93BA2575AC0A9629C8B63. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
- ^ Sisario, Ben (September 18, 2004). "ARTS BRIEFING: HIGHLIGHTS; Rick James Autopsy Results". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E4D61739F93BA2575AC0A9629C8B63#. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
External links
- Rick James official site
- Rick James, The Mynah Birds and Neil Young
- Rick James at the Internet Movie Database
- Rick James at Find a Grave
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Mentioned in
Only Four You
(1985 Album by The Mary Jane Girls)
Motown Legends: Give It to Me Baby
(1995 Album by Rick James)
Lauren Hutton: Saturday Night Live (TV Episode)
(1981 Comedy TV Episode)
Old School Mixx, Vol. 2
(1998 Album by Various Artists)
Bobby Nunn
(Rhythm & Blues Artist, '60s-'80s)
» More